Because the mouse is one of the most common of rodents and causes great economic loss, it is not surprising that the trapping art is replete with various types of traps for catching mice. Despite the large number of ideas for mousetraps, there still is missing from the prior art a trap which can be manufactured at low cost, which can be set and also when sprung handled without risk or esthetic offense to the user, and which causes a prompt and relatively humane death of the rodent. Neither has there been provided a trap which can be manufactured inexpensively enough that it can economically be thrown away after each use, but which can be reused if desired. Because mice harbor lice and fleas, it is better not to handle their dead bodies, and an economically disposable trap represents a considerable health advantage, as well as an improvement for the housewife who need not even see the dead body.
For example, the most common mousetrap uses a spring-loaded metal hoop which must be set against a strong spring, and when sprung travels over the head of the rodent and is supposed to kill it by a blow and hold it in place until it is disposed of. The problem with such a trap is that constitutes a risk to the person setting it, that sometimes it does not succeed in killing the rodent, and that when it is successful it frequently makes an unsightly mess that the housewife dislikes either seeing or handling.
The success of the foregoing mousetrap has led others to propose receptacle type traps in which the rodent is coaxed to enter and which will by one means or another trap the mouse inside for later disposal. Generally speaking, these have suffered from an excessive size, cost, and unreliability caused by complexity or by a substandard concept of relative movement of parts to trap the mouse.
It is an object of this invention to provide a mousetrap which can readily be set with no more effort than the push of a finger, which will coax the mouse to enter an enclosure, and close a closure that will keep the rodent in the trap. Due to the rodent's relatively high metabolic rate and insufficiency of oxygen in the enclosure, the mouse will soon become unconscious from heat prostration and will die from lack of oxygen in a relatively short time without risk to the user, and without physically injuring the rodent or causing it undue pain or discomfort.